We've never had a horse colic (knock on every wood surface in the house). When I first brought the new mare home, Star was in a frenzy keeping his other mare away from the new one. The next day we went for a trail ride and daughter's boyfriend rode Star (who is the 25 y0 QH, never a sick day in his life). Star was kind of lethargic, he's usually FULL of energy and a handful. About 2 hours into the ride, on our way back, he tried to lay down on the trail. We told Josh to kick him, keep him up, and just kept going. We suspect he was having a mild bout of colic. I felt badly, because it had not occurred to me that Star was probably up all night long, herding his mare away from the regular mare. After trailering him, I was going to put him in a stall (we keep them out 24/7 except for maybe 3 days a year when it's sleeting and freezing), but he can get himself all upset over that, so I turned him out as he seemed fine and pissed off when we got home. That was 3 weeks ago, he's back to his regular pissy self.

I don't know much about colic, having never had to go through it in past 12 years, even with an average of 8 horses. How does a change in weather bring on colic for these horses? How does eating 4 hours early cause it? I don't understand the eating early thing, our horses eat 23 horus a day unless they're being ridden.

OP, I hope that your horse shits a goat and makes it through. Sounds like a scary situation.